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How Food Trends Affect Your Business

Food trends respond to and are driven by the people of today. As such, they are constantly shifting. When you’re focused on your food company, association, farm, or beverage production, and the shoppers you already have, it can be hard to keep up with everything that’s happening in the industry. We get it. You’re busy. You have a business to run, a family to feed, and long days ahead of you, with too little time to get everything done. But at the bedrock of all of that, are your consumers. The people you need to support you, your family, and your business. Current food trends will help you be responsive to that.

We’re going to take you through the 2018 food trends for Canada, and suggest how you can relate this to your business, and rethink or strategize on how you can adapt these trends for your target and your product.

More than knowing what trends are coming up, you want to consider what they mean to your business and (planned) products. So here are a few questions to help guide you:

  1. Is this trend fleeting?
  2. Do you have the capacity to jump on this trend quickly?
  3. Is this trend specific to the food taste/experience (which tend to shift quickly)?
  4. Is this trend specific to the consumer/food processing sectors (which tend to last longer)?

Knowing the answers to these four questions will help you separate the wheat from the chaff and know which trends will help you sell more product.

Here are the Six 2018 Food Trends for Canada

  1. Self-Care Eating: This is all about foods that benefit consumers physically and emotionally, think about foods that help you de-stress, but snack sized.
  2. Minimal Processing: This is all about clearly defining ingredients and using less or minimal processing methods. It’s about being transparent with your consumer.
  3. Food Made Personal: All about convenience, this trend deals with new methods of shopping such as e-commerce, mobile apps, voice control, etc.
  4. Healthy Food For All: Deals with pressure from major global food players to make healthy and organic food available to everyone. Think about Amazon’s new retail space.
  5. New Sensory Experiences: This is all about foods that feature new taste and texture experiences (like chewy ice cream or cookies with popping Candy).
  6. Farewell to Food Waste: This is all about reducing food waste and would connect to using the whole vegetable so as to eliminate waste.

Now, let’s go back to our four original questions.

  1. Which trends are fleeting?
    • New Sensory Experiences
  2. Which Trends can you jump on quickly?
    • Self-Care Eating
    • Minimal Processing
    • Farewell to Food Waste
  3. Which trends are specific to the food taste/experience (which tend to shift quickly)?
    • New Sensory Experiences
  4. Which trends are specific to the consumer/food processing sectors (which tend to last longer)?
    • Self-Care Eating
    • Minimal Processing
    • Food Made Personal
    • Healthy Food For All
    • Farewell to Food Waste

Going through this simple exercise will help you to capitalize on trends that will add value to your business. It will save time, and ultimately, money. In the end, it’s all about doing what’s best for your business and your shopper. But being aware of what your shoppers are looking for, and how you can better provide it to them, will only make your job easier, and your successes greater.

 

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